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===Next Steps===

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If you are brand new to Funtoo Linux and Gentoo Linux, please check out [[Funtoo Linux First Steps]], which will help get you acquainted with your new system. We also have a category for our [[:Category:Official Documentation|official documentation]], which includes all docs that we officially maintain for installation and operation of Funtoo Linux.

Live CD

Funtoo doesn't provide an "official" Funtoo Live CD. We recommend using the Gentoo-based System Rescue CD as it contains lots of tools and utilities and supports both 32-bit and 64-bit systems. Download it here:

If using an older version of System Rescue CD, be sure to select the rescue64 kernel at the boot menu if you are installing a 64-bit system. By default, System Rescue CD used to boot in 32-bit mode though the latest version attempts to automatically detect 64-bit processors.

Network Access

Once you have booted System Rescue CD, see if you have Internet access. Internet access is required for installing Funtoo Linux:

If the ping is successful (you see 64 bytes messages as above,) then your Network is set up. Hit Control-C to stop the ping.

If you need to set up a WiFi connection for Internet access, then this needs to be done using the System Rescue CD graphical environment. Run startx to start a graphical session:

# startx

Then, use the NetworkManager applet (icon in lower right) to connect to a WiFi network of your choice. Next, open a terminal inside your graphical environment, and you should be able to use the terminal to complete the rest of the steps.

Remote Install

Alternatively, you can log into System Rescue CD over the network via SSH to perform the install from another computer, and this may be more convenient way to install Funtoo Linux.

If you'd like to complete the install remotely, here's how. First, you will need to ensure that System Rescue CD has a functioning network connection. Then, you will need to set a root password for System Rescue CD:

Once you have typed in a password, you will now need to determine the IP address of System Rescue CD, and then you can use ssh to connect to it. To determine the IP address currently being used by System Rescue CD, type ifconfig:

# ifconfig

One of the interfaces should have an IP address (listed as inet addr:) from your LAN. You can then connect remotely, from another system on your LAN, to System Rescue CD, and perform steps from the comfort of an existing OS. On your remote system, type the following, replacing 1.2.3.4 with the IP address of System Rescue CD. Connecting from an existing Linux or MacOS system would look something like this:

(remote system) $ ssh root@1.2.3.4
Password: **********

Note

If you'd like to connect remotely from an existing Microsoft Windows system, you'll need to download an SSH client for Windows, such as PuTTY.

After you've logged in via SSH, you're now connected remotely to System Rescue CD and can perform the installation steps.

Prepare Hard Disk

In this section, we'll learn about the different ways that Funtoo Linux can be installed on -- and boot from -- a hard disk.

Introduction

In earlier times, there was only one way to boot a PC-compatible computer. All of our desktops and servers had a standard PC BIOS, all our hard drives used Master Boot Records to boot the system, and our hard drives were partitioned into different regions using the MBR partition scheme. That was just how it was done. And we liked it that way!

Then, along came EFI and UEFI, which are new-style firmware designed to boot systems, along with GPT partition tables to define disk partitions on disks larger than 2.2TB. All of the sudden, we had a variety of options for installing and booting Linux systems, turning what once was a one-method-fits-all approach into something a lot more complex.

Let's take a moment to review the options available to you for configuring a hard drive to boot Funtoo Linux. This Install Guide uses, and recommends, the old-school method of BIOS booting and using an MBR. It works and (except for rare cases) is universally supported. There's nothing wrong with it. If your system disk is 2TB or smaller in size, it won't prevent you from using all of your disk's capacity, either.

But, there are some situations where the old-school method isn't optimal. If you have a system disk >2TB in size, then MBR partitions won't allow you to access all your storage. So that's one reason. Another reason is that there are some so-called "PC" systems out there that don't support BIOS booting anymore, and force you to use UEFI to boot. So, out of compassion for people who fall into this predicament, this Install Guide documents UEFI booting too.

Our recommendation is still to go old-school unless you have reason not to. The boot loader we will be using to load the Linux kernel in this guide is called GRUB, so we call this method the BIOS + GRUB (MBR) method. It's the traditional method of setting up a PC-compatible system to boot Linux.

If you need to use UEFI to boot, we recommend not using the MBR at all for booting, as some systems support this, but others don't. Instead, we recommend using UEFI to boot GRUB, which in turn will load Linux. We refer to this method as the UEFI + GRUB (GPT) method.

And yes, there are even more methods, some of which are documented on the Boot Methods page. We used to recommend a BIOS + GRUB (GPT) method but it is not consistently supported across a wide variety of hardware.

The big question is -- which boot method should you use? Here's how to tell.

Principle 1 - Old School

If you can reliably boot System Rescue CD and it shows you an initial light blue menu, you are booting the CD using the BIOS, and it's likely that you can thus boot Funtoo Linux using the BIOS. So, go old-school and use BIOS booting, unless you have some reason to use UEFI, such as having a >2.2TB system disk. In that case, see Principle 2, as your system may also support UEFI booting.

Principle 2 - New School

If you can reliably boot System Rescue CD and it shows you an initial black and white menu -- congratulations, your system is configured to support UEFI booting. This means that you are ready to install Funtoo Linux to boot via UEFI. Your system may still support BIOS booting, but just be trying UEFI first. You can poke around in your BIOS boot configuration and play with this.

What's the Big Difference between Old School and New School?

Here's the deal. If you go with old-school MBR partitions, your /boot partition will be an ext2 filesystem, and you'll use fdisk to create your MBR partitions. If you go with new-school GPT partitions and UEFI booting, your /boot partition will be a vfat filesystem, because this is what UEFI is able to read, and you will use gdisk to create your GPT partitions. And you'll install GRUB a bit differently. That's about all it comes down to, in case you were curious.

Also Note

To install Funtoo Linux to boot via the New School UEFI method, you must boot System Rescue CD using UEFI -- and see an initial black and white screen. Otherwise, UEFI will not be active and you will not be able to set it up!

Note

Some motherboards may appear to support UEFI, but don't. Do your research. For example, the Award BIOS in my Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD7 rev 1.1 has an option to enable UEFI boot for CD/DVD. This is not sufficient for enabling UEFI boot for hard drives and installing Funtoo Linux. UEFI must be supported for both removable media (so you can boot System Rescue CD using UEFI) as well as fixed media (so you can boot your new Funtoo Linux installation.) It turns out that later revisions of this board (rev 3.0) have a new BIOS that fully supports UEFI boot. This may point to a third principle -- know thy hardware.

Old-School (BIOS/MBR) Method

Note

Use this method if you are booting using your BIOS, and if your System Rescue CD initial boot menu was light blue. If you're going to use the new-school method, click here to jump down to UEFI/GPT.

Preparation

First, it's a good idea to make sure that you've found the correct hard disk to partition. Try this command and verify that /dev/sda is the disk that you want to partition:

Along the way, you can type "p" and hit Enter to view your current partition table. If you make a mistake, you can type "d" to delete an existing partition that you created. When you are satisfied with your partition setup, type "w" to write your configuration to disk:

Write Partition Table To Disk:

Command: w ↵
Do you want to proceed? (Y/N): Y ↵

The partition table will now be written to disk and gdisk will close.

Now, your GPT/GUID partitions have been created, and will show up as the following block devices under Linux:

/dev/sda1, which will be used to hold the /boot filesystem,

/dev/sda2, which will be used for swap space, and

/dev/sda3, which will hold your root filesystem.

Creating filesystems

Note

This section covers both BIOS and UEFI installs. Don't skip it!

Before your newly-created partitions can be used, the block devices need to be initialized with filesystem metadata. This process is known as creating a filesystem on the block devices. After filesystems are created on the block devices, they can be mounted and used to store files.

Let's keep this simple. Are you using old-school MBR partitions? If so, let's create an ext2 filesystem on /dev/sda1:

# mkfs.ext2 /dev/sda1

If you're using new-school GPT partitions for UEFI, you'll want to create a vfat filesystem on /dev/sda1, because this is what UEFI is able to read:

# mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/sda1

Now, let's create a swap partition. This partition will be used as disk-based virtual memory for your Funtoo Linux system.

You will not create a filesystem on your swap partition, since it is not used to store files. But it is necessary to initialize it using the mkswap command. Then we'll run the swapon command to make your newly-initialized swap space immediately active within the live CD environment, in case it is needed during the rest of the install process:

# mkswap /dev/sda2
# swapon /dev/sda2

Now, we need to create a root filesystem. This is where Funtoo Linux will live. We generally recommend ext4 or XFS root filesystems. If you're not sure, choose ext4. Here's how to create a root ext4 filesystem:

# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3

...and here's how to create an XFS root filesystem, if you choose to use XFS:

# mkfs.xfs /dev/sda3

Your filesystems (and swap) have all now been initialized, so that that can be mounted (attached to your existing directory heirarchy) and used to store files. We are ready to begin installing Funtoo Linux on these brand-new filesystems.

Warning

When deploying an OpenVZ host, please use ext4 exclusively. The Parallels development team tests extensively with ext4, and modern versions of openvz-rhel6-stable are not compatible with XFS, and you may experience kernel bugs.

Mounting filesystems

Mount the newly-created filesystems as follows, creating /mnt/funtoo as the installation mount point:

Optionally, if you have a separate filesystem for /home or anything else:

# mkdir /mnt/funtoo/home
# mount /dev/sda4 /mnt/funtoo/home

If you have /tmp or /var/tmp on a separate filesystem, be sure to change the permissions of the mount point to be globally-writeable after mounting, as follows:

# chmod 1777 /mnt/funtoo/tmp

Setting the Date

Important

If your system's date and time are too far off (typically by months or years,) then it may prevent Portage from properly downloading source tarballs. This is because some of our sources are downloaded via HTTPS, which use SSL certificates and are marked with an activation and expiration date. However, if you system time is relatively close to correct, you can probably skip this step for now.

Now is a good time to verify the date and time are correctly set to UTC. Use the date command to verify the date and time:

# date
Fri Jul 15 19:47:18 UTC 2011

If the date and/or time need to be corrected, do so using date MMDDhhmmYYYY, keeping in mind hhmm are in 24-hour format. The example below changes the date and time to "July 16th, 2011 @ 8:00PM" UTC:

# date 071620002011
Fri Jul 16 20:00:00 UTC 2011

Once you have set the system clock, it's a very good idea to copy the time to the hardware clock, so it persists across reboots:

# hwclock --systohc

Installing the Stage 3 tarball

Now that filesystems are created and your hardware and system clock are set, the next step is downloading the initial Stage 3 tarball. The Stage 3 is a pre-compiled system used as a starting point to install Funtoo Linux.

To download the correct build of Funtoo Linux for your system, head over to the Subarches page. Subarches are builds of Funtoo Linux that are designed to run on a particular type of CPU, to offer the best possible performance. They also take advantage of the instruction sets available for each CPU.

The Subarches page lists all CPU-optimized versions of Funtoo Linux. Find the one that is appropriate for the type of CPU that your system has, and then click on its name in the first column (such as corei7, for example.) You will then go to a page dedicated to that subarch, and the available stage3's available for download will be listed.

For most subarches, you will have several stage3's available to choose from. This next section will help you understand which one to pick.

Which Build?

If you're not sure, pick funtoo-current.

Funtoo Linux has various different 'builds':

Build

Description

funtoo-current

The most commonly-selected build of Funtoo Linux. Receives rapid updates and preferred by desktop users.

Which Variant?

Besides our "regular" stage3's listed with a variant of (None), the following variant builds are available:

Variant

Description

(None)

The "standard" version of Funtoo Linux

pure64

A 64-bit build that drops multilib (32-bit compatibility) support. Can be ideal for server systems.

hardened

Includes PIE/SSP toolchain for enhanced security. PIE does require the use of PaX in the kernel, while SSP works with any kernel, and provides enhanced security in user-space to avoid stack-based exploits.

Download the Stage3

Once you have found the stage3 that you would like to download, use wget to download the Stage 3 tarball you have chosen to use as the basis for your new Funtoo Linux system. It should be saved to the /mnt/funtoo directory as follows:

Note that 64-bit systems can run 32-bit or 64-bit stages, but 32-bit systems can only run 32-bit stages. Make sure that you select a Stage 3 build that is appropriate for your CPU. If you are not certain, it is a safe bet to choose the generic_64 or generic_32 stage. Consult the Subarches page for more information.

Once the stage is downloaded, extract the contents with the following command, substituting in the actual name of your stage 3 tarball:

# tar xpf stage3-latest.tar.xz

Important

It is very important to use tar's "p" option when extracting the Stage 3 tarball - it tells tar to preserve any permissions and ownership that exist within the archive. Without this option, your Funtoo Linux filesystem permissions will be incorrect.

Chroot into Funtoo

Before chrooting into your new system, there's a few things that need to be done first. You will need to mount /proc and /dev inside your new system. Use the following commands:

You'll also want to copy over resolv.conf in order to have proper DNS name resolution from inside the chroot:

# cp /etc/resolv.conf etc

Now you can chroot into your new system. Use env before chroot to ensure that no environment variables from the installation media are used by your new system:

# env -i HOME=/root TERM=$TERM chroot . bash -l

Note

Users of live CDs with 64-bit kernels installing 32-bit systems: Some software may use uname -r to check whether the system is 32 or 64-bit. You may want append linux32 to the chroot command as a workaround, but it's generally not needed.

Important

If you receive the error "chroot: failed to run command `/bin/bash': Exec format error", it is probably because you are running a 32-bit kernel and trying to execute 64-bit code. SystemRescueCd boots with a 32-bit kernel by default.

It's also a good idea to change the default command prompt while inside the chroot. This will avoid confusion if you have to change terminals. Use this command:

# export PS1="(chroot) $PS1"

Congratulations! You are now chrooted inside a Funtoo Linux system. Now it's time to get Funtoo Linux properly configured so that Funtoo Linux will boot successfully when your system is restarted.

Downloading the Portage tree

Now it's time to install a copy of the Portage repository, which contains package scripts (ebuilds) that tell portage how to build and install thousands of different software packages. To create the Portage repository, simply run emerge --sync from within the chroot. This will automatically clone the portage tree from GitHub:

(chroot) # emerge --sync

Important

If you receive the error with initial emerge --sync due to git protocol restrictions, change SYNC variable in /etc/portage/make.conf:

SYNC="https://github.com/funtoo/ports-2012.git"

Configuring your system

As is expected from a Linux distribution, Funtoo Linux has its share of configuration files. The one file you are absolutely required to edit in order to ensure that Funtoo Linux boots successfully is /etc/fstab. The others are optional.

Using Nano

The default editor included in the chroot environment is called nano. To edit one of the files below, call nano as follows:

(chroot) # nano /etc/fstab

When in the editor, you can use arrow keys to move the cursor, and common keys like backspace and delete will work as expected. To save the file, press Control-X, and answer y when prompted to save the modified buffer if you would like to save your changes.

Configuration Files

Here are a full list of files that you may want to edit, depending on your needs:

File

Do I need to change it?

Description

/etc/fstab

YES - required

Mount points for all filesystems to be used at boot time. This file must reflect your disk partition setup. We'll guide you through modifying this file below.

/etc/localtime

Maybe - recommended

Your timezone, which will default to UTC if not set. This should be a symbolic link to something located under /usr/share/zoneinfo (e.g. /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Montreal)

/etc/make.conf (symlink) - also known as:/etc/portage/make.conf

Maybe - recommended

Parameters used by gcc (compiler), portage, and make. It's a good idea to set MAKEOPTS. This is covered later in this document.

/etc/conf.d/hostname

Maybe - recommended

Used to set system hostname. Set the hostname variable to the fully-qualified (with dots, ie. foo.funtoo.org) name if you have one. Otherwise, set to the local system hostname (without dots, ie. foo). Defaults to localhost if not set.

/etc/hosts

No

You no longer need to manually set the hostname in this file. This file is automatically generated by /etc/init.d/hostname.

/etc/conf.d/keymaps

Optional

Keyboard mapping configuration file (for console pseudo-terminals). Set if you have a non-US keyboard. See Funtoo Linux Localization.

/etc/conf.d/hwclock

Optional

How the time of the battery-backed hardware clock of the system is interpreted (UTC or local time). Linux uses the battery-backed hardware clock to initialize the system clock when the system is booted.

Allows you to specify the default console font. To apply this font, enable the consolefont service by running rc-update add consolefont.

profiles

Optional

Some useful portage settings that may help speed up intial configuration.

If you're installing an English version of Funtoo Linux, you're in luck as most of the configuration files can be used as-is. If you're installing for another locale, don't worry. We will walk you through the necessary configuration steps on the Funtoo Linux Localization page, and if needed, there's always plenty of friendly, helpful support. (See Community)

Let's go ahead and see what we have to do. Use nano -w <name_of_file> to edit files -- the "-w" disables word-wrapping, which is handy when editing configuration files. You can copy and paste from the examples.

Warning

It's important to edit your /etc/fstab file before you reboot! You will need to modify both the "fs" and "type" columns to match the settings for your partitions and filesystems that you created with gdisk or fdisk. Skipping this step may prevent Funtoo Linux from booting successfully.

/etc/fstab

/etc/fstab is used by the mount command which is ran when your system boots. Statements of this file inform mount about partitions to be mounted and how they are mounted. In order for the system to boot properly, you must edit /etc/fstab and ensure that it reflects the partition configuration you used earlier:

Currently, our default /etc/fstab has the root filesystem as /dev/sda4 and the swap partition as /dev/sda3. These will need to be changed to /dev/sda3 and /dev/sda2, respectively.

Note

If you're using UEFI to boot, change the /dev/sda1 line so it says vfat instead of ext2. Similarly, make sure that the /dev/sda3 line specifies either xfs or ext4, depending on which filesystem you chose at filesystem-creation time.

/etc/localtime

/etc/localtime is used to specify the timezone that your machine is in, and defaults to UTC. If you would like your Funtoo Linux system to use local time, you should replace /etc/localtime with a symbolic link to the timezone that you wish to use.

(chroot) # ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/MST7MDT /etc/localtime

The above sets the timezone to Mountain Standard Time (with daylight savings). Type ls /usr/share/zoneinfo to see what timezones are available. There are also sub-directories containing timezones described by location.

/etc/portage/make.conf

MAKEOPTS can be used to define how many parallel compilations should occur when you compile a package, which can speed up compilation significantly. A rule of thumb is the number of CPUs (or CPU threads) in your system plus one. If for example you have a dual core processor without hyper-threading, then you would set MAKEOPTS to 3:

MAKEOPTS="-j3"

If you are unsure about how many processors/threads you have then use nproc to help you.

(chroot) # nproc
16

Set MAKEOPTS to this number plus one:

MAKEOPTS="-j17"

USE flags define what functionality is enabled when packages are built. It is not recommended to add a lot of them during installation; you should wait until you have a working, bootable system before changing your USE flags. A USE flag prefixed with a minus ("-") sign tells Portage not to use the flag when compiling. A Funtoo guide to USE flags will be available in the future. For now, you can find out more information about USE flags in the Gentoo Handbook.

LINGUAS tells Portage which local language to compile the system and applications in (those who use LINGUAS variable like OpenOffice). It is not usually necessary to set this if you use English. If you want another language such as French (fr) or German (de), set LINGUAS appropriately:

LINGUAS="fr"

/etc/conf.d/hwclock

If you dual-boot with Windows, you'll need to edit this file and change the value of clock from UTC to local, because Windows will set your hardware clock to local time every time you boot Windows. Otherwise you normally wouldn't need to edit this file.

(chroot) # nano -w /etc/conf.d/hwclock

Localization

By default, Funtoo Linux is configured with Unicode (UTF-8) enabled, and for the US English locale and keyboard. If you would like to configure your system to use a non-English locale or keyboard, see Funtoo Linux Localization.

Introducing Portage

Portage, the Funtoo Linux package manager has a command called emerge which is used to build and install packages from source. It also takes care of installing all of the package's dependencies. You call emerge like this:

(chroot) # emerge packagename

When you install a package by specifying its name in the command-line, Portage records its name in the /var/lib/portage/world file. It does so because it assumes that, since you have installed it by name, you want to consider it part of your system and want to keep the package updated in the future. This is a handy feature, since when packages are being added to the world set, we can update our entire system by typing:

(chroot) # emerge --sync
(chroot) # emerge -auDN @world

This is the "official" way to update your Funtoo Linux system. Above, we first update our Portage tree using git to grab the latest ebuilds (scripts), and then run an emerge command to update the world set of packages. The options specified tell emerge to:

a - show us what will be emerged, and ask us if we want to proceed

u - update the packages we specify -- don't emerge them again if they are already emerged.

D - Consider the entire dependency tree of packages when looking for updates. In other words, do a deep update.

N - Update any packages that have changed (new) USE settings.

You should also consider passing --with-bdeps=y when emerging @world, at least once in a while. This will update build dependencies as well.

Of course, sometimes we want to install a package but not add it to the world file. This is often done because you only want the package installed temporarily or because you know the package in question is a dependnecy of another package. If this behavior is desired, you call emerge like this:

Updating World

Now is actually a very good time to update the entire system and it can be a good idea to do so prior to first boot.

(chroot) # emerge --sync
(chroot) # emerge -auDN @world

Important

Make sure you read any post emerge messages and follow their instructions. This is especially true if you have upgraded perl or python.

Configuring and installing the Linux kernel

Now it's time to build and install a Linux kernel, which is the heart of any Funtoo Linux system. The kernel is loaded by the boot loader, and interfaces directly with your system's hardware, and allows regular (userspace) programs to run.

A kernel must be configured properly for your system's hardware, so that it supports your hard drives, file systems, network cards, and so on. More experienced Linux users can choose to install kernel sources and configure and install their own kernel. If you don't know how to do this, we provide ebuilds that will automatically build a "univeral" kernel, modules and initramfs for booting your system that supports all hardware. This is an extremely simple way of building a kernel that will get your system booted.

What is our goal? To build a kernel that will recognize all the hardware in your system necessary for booting, so that you will be greeted by a friendly login prompt after installation is complete. These instructions will guide you through the process of installing a kernel the "easy" way -- without requiring user configuration, by using a "universal" kernel.

Package Sets

Before we install a kernel, we're going to cover a feature of Portage called package sets. Portage, the package manager/ports system for Funtoo Linux, will keep track of system packages as well as packages you have installed by calling emerge directly. These packages that are part of the base system are considered part of the "system" package set, while packages that you have installed by typing them on the command line (such as "gnome" in emerge gnome) will be added to the "world" package set. This provides an easy way to update your entire system.

However, sometimes it's nice to be able to update the kernel all by itself, or leave a kernel update out of your regular whole system update. To do this, we will create a new package set called "kernel".

Kernel Package Set

Now, we'll want to set a USE variable to tell debian-sources to build a "universal" kernel and initramfs for us, to take the guess-work out of getting Funtoo Linux booted. To do this, we're going to set the binary USE variable for debian-sources, as follows:

If USE variables are new to you, you'll be getting a lot more familiar with them as you use Funtoo Linux. At their essence, they are "switches" that you can set to configure options that can be built in to various packages. They're used to customize your Funtoo Linux system to meet your exact needs. We added support for a binary USE flag to the debian-sources ebuilds, as well as a few other of our kernel ebuilds, to make it easier for new users to get Funtoo Linux up and running.

Now, when we just want to update our system's packages, we'll type emerge -auDN @world, and it will update our world set, leaving out the kernel. Likewise, when we just want to update our kernel, we'll type emerge -au @kernel, and it will update our kernel, leaving out the world set.

Building the Kernel

Note

See Funtoo Linux Kernels for a full list of kernels supported in Funtoo Linux. We recommend debian-sources for new users.

Important

debian-sources with binary USE flag requires at least 14GB free in /var/tmp and takes around 1 hour to build on a Intel Core i7 Processor.

Let's emerge our kernel:

(chroot) # emerge -1 @kernel

Important

Right now, the -1 option is required to not add our @kernel set to world-sets. This allows you to emerge it independently from @world. If you forget to use this option, edit /var/lib/portage/world-sets and remove the @kernel line. This will prevent kernel updates from being included in @world updates.

Note that while use of the binary USE flag makes installing a working kernel extremely simple, it is one part of Funtoo Linux that takes a very long time to build from source, because it is building a kernel that supports all hardware that Linux supports! So, get the build started, and then let your machine compile. Slower machines can take up to several hours to build the kernel, and you'll want to make sure that you've set MAKEOPTS in /etc/portage/make.conf to the number of processing cores/threads (plus one) in your system before starting to build it as quickly as possible -- see the /etc/portage/make.conf section if you forgot to do this.

Note

NVIDIA card users: the binary USE flag installs the Nouveau drivers which cannot be loaded at the same time as the proprietary drivers, and cannot be unloaded at runtime because of KMS. You need to blacklist it under /etc/modprobe.d/.

Once emerge completes, you'll have a brand new kernel and initramfs installed to /boot, plus kernel headers installed in /usr/src/linux, and you'll be ready to configure the boot loader to load these to boot your Funtoo Linux system.

Installing a Bootloader

These install instructions show you how to use GRUB to boot using BIOS (old-school) or UEFI (new-school). As of boot-update-1.7.2, now in Portage, the steps are very similar.

First, emerge boot-update. This will also cause grub-2 and efibootmgr to be merged, since they are dependencies:

(chroot) # emerge boot-update

Then, edit /etc/boot.conf using nano and specify "Funtoo Linux genkernel" as the default setting at the top of the file, replacing "Funtoo Linux".

First Boot, and in the future...

OK -- you are ready to boot!

You only need to run grub-install when you first install Funtoo Linux, but you need to re-run boot-update every time you modify your /etc/boot.conf file or add new kernels to your system. This will regenerate /boot/grub/grub.cfg so that you will have new kernels available in your GRUB boot menu, the next time you reboot.

Configuring your network

It's important to ensure that you will be able to connect to your local-area network after you reboot into Funtoo Linux. There are three approaches you can use for configuring your network: NetworkManager, dhcpcd, and the Funtoo Linux Networking scripts. Here's how to choose which one to use based on the type of network you want to set up.

Wi-Fi

Using NetworkManager

For laptop/mobile systems where you will be using Wi-Fi and connecting to various networks, NetworkManager is strongly recommended. The Funtoo version of NetworkManager is fully functional even from the command-line, so you can use it even without X or without the Network Manager applet. Here are the steps involved in setting up NetworkManager:

Above, we installed linux-firmware which contains a complete collection of available firmware for many hardware devices including Wi-Fi adapters, plus NetworkManager to manage our network connection. Then we added NetworkManager to the default runlevel so it will start when Funtoo Linux boots.

After you reboot into Funtoo Linux, you will be able to add a Wi-Fi connection this way:

Note

The following command will not work as long as you are in chroot environment. The reason for this is that addwifi will need dbus and rfkill to be set up. So don't forget to reboot!

# addwifi -S wpa -K 'wifipassword' mywifinetwork

The addwifi command is used to configure and connect to a WPA/WPA2 Wi-Fi network named mywifinetwork with the password wifipassword. This network configuration entry is stored in /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections so that it will be remembered in the future. You should only need to enter this command once for each Wi-Fi network you connect to.

Using wpa_supplicant

If for some reason you don't want to use a tool such as NetworkManager or wicd, you can use wpa_supplicant for wireless network connections.

First, emerge wpa_supplicant:

(chroot) # emerge -a wpa_supplicant

Now, edit the wpa_supplicant configuration file, located at /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf.
The syntax is very easy:

Desktop (Wired Ethernet)

For a home desktop or workstation with wired Ethernet that will use DHCP, the simplest and most effective option to enable network connectivity is to simply add dhcpcd to the default runlevel:

(chroot) # rc-update add dhcpcd default

When you reboot, dhcpcd will run in the background and manage all network interfaces and use DHCP to acquire network addresses from a DHCP server.

Server (Static IP)

For servers, the Funtoo Linux Networking scripts are recommended. They are optimized for static configurations and things like virtual ethernet bridging for virtualization setups. See Funtoo Linux Networking for information on how to use Funtoo Linux's template-based network configuration system.

Finishing Steps

Set your root password

It's imperative that you set your root password before rebooting so that you can log in.

(chroot) # passwd

Restart your system

Now is the time to leave chroot, to unmount Funtoo Linux partitions and files and to restart your computer. When you restart, the GRUB boot loader will start, load the Linux kernel and initramfs, and your system will begin booting.

System Rescue CD will gracefully unmount your new Funtoo filesystems as part of its normal shutdown sequence.

You should now see your system reboot, the GRUB boot loader appear for a few seconds, and then see the Linux kernel and initramfs loading. After this, you should see Funtoo Linux itself start to boot, and you should be greeted with a login: prompt. Funtoo Linux has been successfully installed!

Profiles

Once you have rebooted into Funtoo Linux, you can further customize your system to your needs by using Funtoo Profiles.

typically x86-32bit or x86-64bit, this defines the processor type and support of your system. This is defined when your stage was built and should not be changed.

build

defines whether your system is a current, stable or experimental build. current systems will have newer packages unmasked than stable systems.

flavor

defines the general type of system, such as server or desktop, and will set default USE flags appropriate for your needs.

mix-ins

define various optional settings that you may be interested in enabling.

One arch, build and flavor must be set for each Funtoo Linux system, while mix-ins are optional and you can enable more than one if desired.

Remember that profiles can often be inherited. For example, the desktop flavor inherits the workstation flavor settings, which in turn inherits the X and audio mix-ins. You can view this by using eselect:

Next Steps

If you are brand new to Funtoo Linux and Gentoo Linux, please check out Funtoo Linux First Steps, which will help get you acquainted with your new system. We also have a category for our official documentation, which includes all docs that we officially maintain for installation and operation of Funtoo Linux.

We also have a number of pages dedicated to setting up your system, which you can find below. If you are interested in adding a page to this list, add it to the "First Steps" MediaWiki category.